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Central League
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Tokyo
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1934
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'''Dai-Nippon Tōkyō Yakyū Club''' (大日本東京野球倶楽部 1934 - 1935 ), '''Tōkyō Kyojingun''' (東京巨人軍 1936 - 1946 ), '''Tōkyō Yomiuri Kyojingun''' ('''Yomiuri Giants''' 1947 - 2002 ), '''Yomiuri Kyojingun''' ('''Yomiuri Giants''' 2002 -)
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Tokyo Dome
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Orange, white and black
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Intertwined "Y" and "G" in orange on a black field
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''Kyojin'' (巨人), ''Giants'' (ジャイアンツ), ''G''
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1951 , 1952 , 1953 , 1955 , 1956 , 1957 , 1958 , 1959 , 1961 , 1963 , 1965 , 1966 , 1967 , 1968 , 1969 , 1970 , 1971 , 1972 , 1973 , 1976 , 1977 , 1981 , 1983 , 1987 , 1989 , 1990 , 1994 , 1996 , 2000 , 2002
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Japan Series
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1951 , 1952 , 1953 , 1955 , 1961 , 1963 , 1965 , 1966 , 1967 , 1968 , 1969 , 1970 , 1971 , 1972 , 1973 , 1981 , 1989 , 1994 , 2000 , 2002
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''Giabbit'' (ジャビット)
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Home
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The are a
Nippon Professional Baseball team based at the
Tokyo Dome in
Bunkyo ,
Tokyo ,
Japan . The Giants play in the
Central League . The team is sometimes called the "Tokyo Giants" in the American press, but like the
Hanshin Tigers and
Orix Buffaloes , the team is officially known by the name of its corporate owner rather than the name of the city it plays in. The team's owner is the
Yomiuri Group , a media
Conglomerate which includes two newspapers and a television network. The Yomiuri Giants are regarded as "The
New York Yankees of Japan" due to their popularity and past dominance of the league.
The Giants are the oldest professional team in Japan. They won nine
Japanese Baseball League titles before the establishment of the two league system in
1950 . Starting in
1965 , the Giants won nine consecutive Central League pennants and
Japan Series titles, in large part because of the hitting of
Shigeo Nagashima and
Sadaharu Oh . The last Giants pennant was in
2002 . The Yomiuri Giants have won more pennants and Japan Series titles than any other team.
The team is often referred by fans and in news headlines and tables simply as ''Kyojin'' (巨人), Japanese for "Giants", instead of the usual corporate owner's name or the English nickname.
- [http://english.baseball-museum.or.jp/baseball_hallo/detail/detail_008.html], [http://mlb.mlb.com/NASApp/mlb/mlb/news/mlb_news.jsp?ymd=20021106&content_id=171904&vkey=news_mlb&fext=.jsp]
- {Link without Title}
, the Giants' home field]]
Due to the Yomiuri company's vast influence in Japan as a major media conglomerate, the Giants are successfully marketed to the Japanese people as "Japan's Team." Often, when asked who their favorite team is, a Japanese person will reportedly reply, "I'm Japanese, therefore I like the Giants." In fact, for some years the Giants' uniforms had "Tokyo" on the jersey instead of "Yomiuri" or "Giants," seeming to imply that the Giants represent the vast metropolis and geopolitical center of Japan, even though the
Yakult Swallows are also based in Tokyo and three other teams play in the
Greater Tokyo Area . This bandwagon appeal has been compared with the marketing of the
New York Yankees or
Manchester United to their fan bases, except that support for the Giants hits above 50% of the Japanese population. Correspondingly, fans of other professional baseball teams in Japan are often openly derisive and contemptuous of the Giants' bandwagon marketing tactics, and an "anti-Giants" movement exists in protest of the near hegemony established by the Yomiuri Giants.
It has also long been alleged that the Giants rely on underhanded tactics to recruit the best players, involving bribes to players and amateur coaches, or using their influence on the governing council of Japanese professional baseball to pass rules that favors their recruiting efforts. This may be one explanation for the Giants' abundance of success in league play.
- Yomiuri Giants name and uniforms were based on the New York (now San Francisco) Giants . The teams colors (orange and black) are the same colors worn by the National League's Giants, both in New York and San Francisco. The stylized lettering on the team's jerseys and caps is similar to the fancy lettering used by the Giants when they played in New York in the 1930s, although during the 1970s the Giants modernized their lettering to follow the style worn by the American Giants.
- The Giants' main rivalry is with the Hanshin Tigers , a team especially popular in the Kansai region.
- It has been said because of the lengthy MLBPA strike in the United States, and because of Japanese lore of the meaning of 60th anniversaries, the 1994 60th Anniversary Yomiuri Giants were the luckiest team in professional baseball. Many journalists called the 1994 team the World Champions of Professional Baseball.
- : Yomiuri Giants, Takebashi 3-3 Building, 3-3 Kanda Nishiki-cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 101-8462
